• What's ticked?
• Accolades
• Contact us

c o l u m n s

• Cheap Charlie
• ChrisCrossings
• Err Travel
• Leocha
• Travel Notes
• Archives

s u b s c r i b e

• Elliott's E-Mail, a free weekly newsletter, is your insider resource for moneysaving ideas.

First name

Last name

E-mail address

Subscribe
Cancel

• Like what you see? Now you can become an underwriter.

a l s o

• Ticked e-mail
• Visit Tripso
• Referring sites
• Home

s e a r c h

• Find a story.



(c) Elliott Publishing.

Dry Skies
Cheap Charlie · July 17, 2000

I apologize for misleading readers early last week with a column about getting refunds from bankrupt airlines. I corrected the column on Tuesday, but some of you may still be under the a misconception about getting refunds for flights canceled because of bankruptcy after paying with cash or check.

In my column, I suggest that travel agents could get refunds for tickets purchased through them by check. This is not correct. I thought that American Society of Travel Agents had an insurance program that covered its members in the case of a bankrupt airline. This is not true.

The bottom line is that anyone who paid for travel with a check or cash directly to an airline or to a travel agent prior to an airline declaring bankruptcy is in the words of one agent, "SOL." I believe that translates to sore out of luck, or some variation thereof.

The lesson here is, pay with a credit card. It is your only insurance unless you have a specific trip cancellation policy that includes airline bankruptcies.

While I am reviewing one past column, let's look back on my call for a limit to alcohol served on airlines.

It seems that initial response to "drunk and deranged" passengers in an article published in Air Line Pilot will not be to eliminate the cause, but to deal with the violence.

This is another case of focusing on the symptoms rather than the real problem. But in lieu of some sort of limitation on drunkenness, pilots and crew must prepare for worst.

ALPA, the Air Line Pilots Association, issued a six-point bulletin to flight crews that instructs them to develop contingency plans for cases of violent passengers.

E-mail from flight attendants strongly supported the limited alcoholic drink rule. But in the meantime, strong-arm tactics are the norm.

Only last week, a United flight was diverted to Bangor International Airport (BIA) to deplane a "rowdy" passenger who was attacking passengers and crew.

Such events have occurred often enough to prompt BIA officials to begin informally marketing the airport as a convenient location to unload uncooperative international passengers. Some speculate that most of the "international" traffic in and out of BIA is from diversions.

According to BIA officials, last week's event seemed alcohol-related, as were most of the diversions last summer.

Japan Airlines has reported a doubling of rowdy passenger complaint with many of them associated with drunkenness.

Let me know how you feel about limiting alcoholic drinks on flights to either two per flight or one drink per hour. If the input is significant, I'll forward it to the airlines.

Charlie Leocha is the Boston-based author of Travel Rights: Know the Rules of the Road and the Air Before You Go. Cheap Charlie appears every Monday on this site. E-mail him at charlie@ticked.com or access his Web site.